Amit Shah's Burdwan rally a flop show: TMC

Kolkata: Claiming that the rally addressed by Amit Shah in Burdwan on Tuesday was a 'flop show', ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal ridiculed the BJP President's call to uproot TMC from power in 2016.

"People who have no capacity to grow 'shapla' (a kind of common water lily) are talking of lotus blooming in Bengal," TMC Secretary General and state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee told a press conference here.

"BJP's campaign is based on only propaganda. They want to uproot TMC from power through missed calls...Mamata Banerjee has a long history of struggle and people's movements in Bengal. BJP has no such history," he said.

"I hope Amit babu (Amit Shah) has understood it is difficult for lotus to bloom in Bengal", he said.

Claiming that BJP's Burdwan rally was a flop-show, Chatterjee said, "The main speaker's speech lasted only a few minutes."

"The political culture of Bengal has no place for bad utterances like 'bhaag bhaag," he said, criticising BJP National Secretary Siddharth Nath Singh's comment at the rally that it will be 'Bhaag Mamata Banerjee Bhaag in 2016'.

"One missed call and you become a registered member of BJP. Ideology, what's that ?" the TMC spokesman Derek O'Brien tweeted ridiculing the plea made at the rally by BJP state President Rahul Sinha to the people to become the party's members by giving merely a missed call to a certain mobile phone number.

Chatterjee took a dig at a remark made by Sinha at the rally. "The way Rahul Sinha used the name of a particular community in a derogatory manner is deplorable."

"If Rahul Sinha cared about Bengal, he would speak out against the Centre's negligence towards the state," he added.